Champion darts player Phil 'The Power' Taylor implores pub goers to get behind a campaign to save the once-popular game. Photograph: Max Nash/PAWhen, in 1993, John Major evoked the spirit of George Orwell by eulogising Britain as a nation of warm beer, cricket grounds and old maids cycling to communion, the sentiment surely included something else - the comforting thwack of darts in a pub.

But is the game now disappearing into the past, much like Mr Major's old maids evaporated into the morning mist? Yes, if a new campaign is to be believed.

Backed by the star clout of Phil "The Power" Taylor - some say the finest wielder of a dart ever to approach the oche - Save Our Darts aims to have another 10,000 dart boards in pubs by 2017.

According to the campaign, funded by bookmakers Blue Square, dart boards are being edged out of pubs as they become less traditional and embrace new activiites such as serving food.

Its research has discovered that only one in ten British pub-goers had played darts in the past year, while 40% of men in their 20s had never thrown a dart in their lives.

If we believe The Power, the game is in deep trouble. He believes the game could be "consigned to the history books just 30 years from now" unless more boards are in pubs.

But do we care? Even if dart boards become more widely available, does the modern pub patron still want to join his or her fellow drinkers at the oche? Or are we happier in the modern world of mock-antique leather sofas, Belgian ales and grilled goat's cheese on focaccia bread?